Posts Tagged ‘self harm’

Suicide rates for young Australians double in a decade

This report on ABC News yesterday, ‘Suicide rates for young Australians highest in 10 years, researchers call for new prevention strategies’, reveals the distressing situation regarding the numbers of young people wanting to end their lives. In my talks in schools around the country, young people not infrequently approach me to acknowledge suicidal ideation and self harm. But if support services are stretched to the limit, where are they to go?

Suicide rates among young Australians are at their highest level in 10 years, despite a range of prevention strategies and investment from government, according to new research.

The report, carried out by youth mental health service Orygen, has found the system is not working and a new suicide prevention strategy for young people is needed.

Jo Robinson, head of Orygen’s suicide prevention research, said of the current system: “We’re clearly not getting things right.

“We really lack national leadership when it comes to youth suicide prevention.

“So despite a lot of investment, despite a lot of talk at government level … we really need a reinvigorated approach to youth suicide prevention.”

This is possibly the most chilling segment of the article. I had to stop and re-read, thinking I had read wrongly – ‘tens of thousands’ of young people being turned away?

Young people being turned away from help.

The report calls for a national suicide prevention strategy, supported by a specific youth suicide prevention strategy.

It also found more mental health services were needed for young people who were at high risk of suicide.

“We know that there are tens of thousands of young people who are turned away from services every year because services don’t have the capacity to respond to them,” Dr Robinson said.

“Unfortunately, very tragically, some of those young people will go on to take their own lives.”

I shared the article on my Facebook pages (public page here) I then received this very distressing message from a Melbourne mother which bring the findings home. I share it here with her permission.

Suicide services are so woeful that they can’t help you unless your child is actually physically in danger *now*. In 2015, after I pulled my 9 1/2 year old out of the sandpit (where he had planted himself headfirst in an effort to suffocate himself) I cleaned him up and we talked and when he was calm I called the child adolescent mental health service. They couldn’t advise me at all. He’s too young to access the service, and they couldn’t give me the most simple help like letting me know some safety measures I could take (in addition to what I had already taken care of, like locking the chemicals up and removing knives or checking blind/ curtain cords).

Apart from the situation we found ourselves in (horrifying enough) we got more help from the GP the next day, and due to timing (it was the last week of a school term) and service demands in the community it was 3 weeks till we could see a child psychologist. We did everything we could to make him feel and be safe, from supervising showers (unbenownst to us he had made 2 previous attempts by swallowing hair shampoo – it’s a good thing he was 9 because while the methods he chose weren’t successful, he was very determined) to changing doorknobs – took the lock off the bathroom and put it on the laundry, to doing without our cooking knives for 6 months until we were absolutely certain he was safe. I wouldn’t wish dealing with those services on anyone. The situation is bad. The services are a nightmare.

I asked how he was now. She replied:

He’s well now. Modest, caring, sensitive and curious. In some ways we were lucky to have the chance to help him learn that there are ways to help you feel better and think better, and he has the emotional vocabulary to voice his needs. I have shared the story with Bill Shorten a couple of weeks ago because we do need to do better in this area.

We are thankful this child is doing much better. But what of all the other young people for whom suicide is now a leading cause of death? This is a collective tragedy. Surely we can do better.

Why do some young people injure themselves?

Self-harm and non-suicidal self-injury are still surrounded by considerable stigma – if we are to begin to support young people who are engaging in this behaviour, it is vital that we understand the reasons for it. Dr Claire Kelly from Mental Health First Aid Australia addresses the myths and misperceptions around self-injury, highlighting the common reasons that drive young people to do so, challenging us to think of it as connection-seeking rather than attention-seeking, as well as evaluating their risk of suicide.

‘The glamorising and approval of teen girl audiences of the captioned desire to depart from life is surely one of the most dangerous digital conversations unfolding today’

These postings provide a snapshot of the Instagram dialogue trending amongst Australian adolescent girls. It is a virtual battleground of life and death on the popular image-sharing platform, as girls bombard one another’s feeds with image representations explicitly captioned with suicidal yearnings.

Suicide-themed captions crafted by girls are attracting hundreds of teen and tween girls. However there are almost no responses encouraging the distressed and possibly at-risk girl to call ‘000’, a kids’ help hotline or even asking ‘RUOK?’

Instead, adoring fans applaud with ‘likes’, approving comments and a shower of emoticon hearts before following suit and posting their own suicide-inspired image and caption.

As director of a company, Inspire Creative Arts, working to strengthen positive social media engagement among young people, I am given an insight into the online life of young girls. From cyberbullying to drunken evenings, sex, gossip, body shaming, the ‘thinspiration’ and ‘fitspo’ re-posts, and semi-naked images: I thought I’d scrolled through it all. That was until I stumbled across Instagram’s suicide genre.

Instagram has become the diary of choice as a girl publicly pens her relationship breakdowns, friendship backstabs, family angst, bikini ‘body goals’, and the whimsical longings for physical touch and affection. All this, accompanying filtered images of an ocean, flowers, a sunset, a social gathering, her bedroom, laying on her bed, kneeling on her bed, an upper-body selfie with clothes intact or clothes removed, zoomed in on her lips, shoulders, side cleavage, abdominal definition, upper thighs.

But this public broadcast of death-pondering takes young people’s social media usage to a whole new level. The glamorising and approval of teen girl audiences of the desire to depart from life is surely one of the most dangerous digital conversations unfolding today.

Where did girls learn the idea that offering to cut one another is a demonstration of friendship and loyalty?

A distressed girl’s image can attract the attention of thousands, yet her virtual cry for help is not met with real assistance. It is a sinister paradox that begs us to ask: is the past stigma associated with youth suicide under reconstruction?

Of course we welcome real and honest conversation about the subject, made possible thanks to the work of mental health services leading the way including RUOK campaign, Kids Helpline , Headspace and ReachOut.

However this particular Insta-fad; this troubling collective of emoticon guns, knives and bombs, of applauding girls for the most insightful suicidal thought, and the aspirational connotations of being a suicidal teen, mirrors a detrimental trend.

It is a trend that normalises suicidal ideations as fashionable, deceiving girls as they embark on their rollercoaster quest for belonging, that presenting oneself as suicidal is hot, desirable, and an image deserving of approval.

I wonder how many young lives this digital fashion statement will place at risk, before Instagram’s Terms of Use policy includes ‘suicide’ as a theme considered for automatic deletion?

In a 2014 report by the Australia and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, ‘Help-seeking Behaviour and Adolescent Self-harm’, it was found that only about 50 per cent of youth aged 11-19 sought help when engaging in suicide ideation or thought. Of this figure, it was the ‘informal support systems’, friends and family, who were most commonly accessed for assistance.

But what happens when an online platform becomes a dominant informal system of self-disclosure and, due to the contagion effect of admiration and copycat behaviour, this system keeps those in need trapped in a cycle of posting harm-themed messages and receiving approval for doing so?

Furthermore – what happens when the dialogue throughout this support system, Instagram, transforms a young person’s belief of suicide ideation from being an issue that requires help, to being a normal and trendy thought-pattern?

In the latest report by the Australian Government’s Department of Health, it was reported that 1 in 4 girls aged between 16 and 17 have deliberately injured themselves, with 1 in 5 meeting the diagnostic criteria for a depressive disorder.

It is encouraging to those of us working with young people to see a broader societal discussion of this tragedy at last taking place out in the open. Of course the factors leading to suicidal thoughts and the act itself are complex and multi-layered. And of course I’m not laying all the blame on a social media platform. However if we are going to understand the social/psycho influences and drivers, we need to start including these Instagram postings in the discussion. And perhaps it is time for the platforms themselves to question their own social responsibility in hosting and even enabling the spread of suicidal thinking and contagion among those most vulnerable.

‘The ultimate guide to being yourself’ is about self-acceptance. It offers girls three lessons in how to be themselves: Fall in love with you; Quit Faking It and Get inspired, not obsessed. The first encourages girls to recognise and love themselves for their unique traits. This is well and good. But I don’t think we can ‘fall in love’ with ourselves. We can value our innate dignity and worth, and work to resist pressure to conform to an idealised norm, but ‘falling in love’ is a bit over the top. I don’t think we are meant to be ‘head over heels’ with ourselves – telling girls they should be setting up impossible expectations. I do like the advice to girls to start a gratitude journal and list five things they are grateful for every day, as expressing gratitude is a proven way to improve mental health. ‘Be your own therapist’ also advises girls to organise their thoughts, reflect, be more positive and relieve stress by keeping a journal. I don’t quite agree with the conclusion though: “There’s nothing more empowering than knowing that no matter what life throws at you, you can cope with it.” This puts too much pressure on an individual girl. As I move around the country speaking in schools, I hear shocking stories, including from girls who have suffered sexual abuse and other forms of violence, depression, anxiety, cutting – which has increased by 90 percent in 10 years in older adolescent girls and 60% in girls 12-14 – and eating disorders. Sometimes they won’t get through without significant professional intervention and other support. Read full article.

As is often the case, I find the most helpful offering for girls in teen girl magazines can be found in the shared experiences of the girls themselves.

A passion of mine is opening up safe spaces for girls to talk about issues which are often surrounded by shame, meaning girls don’t get the help they need. One of these issues is self-harm, which has increased 90 percent in older adolescents and 60 percent in younger adolescents, in a mere ten years. So I was pleased to see Dolly again giving space to this issue (I commended the magazine for exploring cutting in its June issue also).

Danielle, who began harming in 2010, tells her story in ‘Reality Reads’. “I was home alone and all the negative thoughts were taking over my mind: that I wasn’t good enough, that I was too ugly. I thought I deserved pain so I inflicted it on myself,” she says. It was seeing an interview with Demi Lovato, who had just come out of rehab for depression and self-harm, that helped Danielle turn things around. “…after I heard Demi, I thought I could get through this,” she says. With the help of medical treatment, she has been free of self-harm for two years. She tweets via @ForeverWithJoeJ about recovery and fundraises for BeyondBlue and Headspace “because they helped me a lot”. She recommends an online session at headpace.org.au where young people can talk to a professional through a chat screen. Read more here

Readers wanting something of substance from Dolly’s June issue would do best to skip the first half and go straight to the second. Articles on self-harm, hate pages and unhealthy attitudes toward food redeem the insubstantial nature of the pages that go before.

‘Would you “like” a hate page?’ explores the phenomenon of online hate pages. A hate page is explained as any page set up on social media to incite hatred, violence or racism towards a group or individuals. Susan McLean of Cyber Safety Solutions explains there are more hate pages around now. “Many people who participate in hate pages wouldn’t behave this way in the real world. There’s a lack of accountability online, so people think they can get away with it,” McLean says. A pack mentality can also be at work, where the more ‘likes’ a page gets the more others join in. Readers are reminded that under state cyber bullying laws, people posting comments or threats on hate pages can be charged. Psychologist Meredith Fuller explains that ‘liking’ the page is the cyber equivalent of looking on while someone gets bullied. Readers are encouraged to report hate pages. A related piece is ‘How I fight bullying’, with three girls telling their stories of addressing bullying in groups including The Hope Project, Angels Goal and Student Harassment Investigation Team (S.H.I.T).

The feature on self-harm is very welcome. Exploring the distressing phenomenon of ‘cutting’, Dolly tells the story of Emily, 15, who started cutting when she was 12. “I do it in secret and hide it as best I can. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed that the only relief I can get is to hurt myself,” she says. An estimated 10 percent of teen girls self-harm. It should not be put in the category of attention-seeking (most girls try to hide the habit) – it is a response to intense emotional pain. Those who engage in the behaviour get a temporary sense of relief, with emotional pain transferred to physical pain. Jasmine, 16, shares her journey of recovery, replacing the act of cutting with positive activities until the urge to cut has passed and talking to trusted people about it. Jasmine has a blog called Perks of Recovery. Read more

One suicide is a tragedy. But what happens when a community is rocked by a series of suicides, one after another, all of them young people? Do the families mourn in private, fearful that expressing their grief publicly could result in more deaths? Or does the community come together, so that individual families can tell their stories and in turn do something to combat the insidious face of depression and its consequences?

Until now the accepted wisdom has been to publicly downplay suicide but in speaking to families who’ve lost children, reporter Liz Jackson found that young people are in fact talking about suicide all the time on facebook. Social media has the potential to influence behaviour, for better or worse, and it’s now accepted that suicide prevention strategies need to deal with this. As one parent explains, it was only after the death of her child that she realised her daughter had been discussing her depression and suicidal thoughts on facebook…

I watched this exceptionally powerful and moving program last night. It is a must-see for anyone with young people in their family - and for anyone who cares for their mental health and how apparently easy it is for teens to fall through the cracks in the mental health system.

It should also be watched by struggling young people, in the hope they might seek help before it is too late. Perhaps the program would help them see how much they are loved and needed and to see the cavernous yawning hole of pain and anguish left in their absence.

I watched it with my 16-year-old daughter and her friend. One of the strong messages to come through was that there is no changing your mind, you can’t come back, it’s final, over, and your friends and family can’t call you: there is no 3G in heaven…

To the family and friends of those who took their lives, you are so brave. You have offered your suffering in a desperately needed act of community service. I hope improved suicide prevention methods will be developed and lives will be saved as a result.

‘The foremost authority in Australia cyber safety lays it on the line and challenges parents to find their digital spine.’ – Dr Michael Carr-Gregg

Whether it is problems with friends, worrying about how you look or just feeling a bit down in the dumps – these books are written especially for you – to help you in your journey. Purchase all four together and save $18.50 on postage! Author: Sharon Witt

In this DVD, Melinda takes us on a visual tour of popular culture. “Melinda’s presentation leaves audiences reeling. She delivers her message with a clarity and commonsense without peer.” – Steve Biddulph, author, Raising Boys, Raising Girls

In this easy-to-read updated book, Steve Biddulph shares powerful stories and give practical advice about every aspect of boyhood.

Men of Honour -written by Glen Gerreyn- encourages and inspires young men to take up the challenge to be honourable. Whether at school, in sport, at work or in relationships, we must develp our character to achieve success and experience the thrills life has on offer.

Purchase the Ruby Who? DVD and book together for only $35 saving 10% off the individual price.

“Getting Real contains a treasure trove of information and should be mandatory reading for all workers with young people in health, education and welfare” – Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, Adolescent Psychologist

Do you read women’s lifestyle magazines? Have you thought about how magazines might affect you when you read them? Faking It reflects the body of academic research on magazines, mass media, and the sexual objectification of women.

Ruby Who? is the sweet and innocent story of a little girl’s adventure in re-discovering her identity. Ruby wishes for so many things and dreams of being like others. Will she end up forgetting how to just be herself?

Ruby Who? is the sweet and innocent story of a little girl’s adventure in re-discovering her identity. Ruby wishes for so many things and dreams of being like others. Will she end up forgetting how to just be herself?

Defiant Birth challenges widespread medical, and often social aversion to less than perfect pregnancies or genetically different babies. It also features women with disabilities who were discouraged from becoming pregnant at all.